Back to GetFilings.com



Table of Contents

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 


 

Form 10-K

 


 

Annual Report Pursuant to Section l3 or l5(d)

of the Securities Exchange Act of l934

 

For the fiscal year ended January 31, 2004

 

Commission File Number 000-50421

 


 

CONN’S, INC.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter)

 


 

 

A Delaware Corporation   06-1672840
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)   (I.R.S. Employer Identification Number)

 

3295 College Street

Beaumont, Texas 77701

(Address of Principal Executive Offices)

 

(409) 832-1696

(Registrant’s Telephone Number, Including Area Code)

 

 


 

Securities registered pursuant to Section l2(b) of the Act:

NONE

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

 

Title of Class


Common Stock, Par Value $0.01 Per Share

 


 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (l) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section l3 or l5(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of l934 during the preceding l2 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  x    No  ¨

 

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ¨

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an accelerated filer (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act).    Yes  ¨    No  x

 

The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates as of the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second quarter is not applicable as the registrant was not publicly traded at that time. The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates as of January 31, 2004 was approximately $101,021,856.

 

There were 23,151,799 shares of common stock, $0.01 par value per share, outstanding on April 15, 2004.

 

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE:

 

Portions of the Definitive Proxy Statement for the Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be held June 3, 2004 (incorporated herein by reference in Part III).

 



Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

          Page

PART I     

ITEM 1.

   BUSINESS.    1

ITEM 2.

   PROPERTIES.    23

ITEM 3.

   LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.    23

ITEM 4.

   SUBMISSION OF MATTERS TO A VOTE OF SECURITY HOLDERS.    23
PART II     

ITEM 5.

   MARKET FOR THE REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY AND RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS.    24

ITEM 6.

   SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA.    26

ITEM 7.

   MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS.    27

ITEM 7A.

   QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK.    46

ITEM 8.

   FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA.    48

ITEM 9.

   CHANGES IN AND DISAGREEMENTS WITH ACCOUNTANTS ON ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE.    71

ITEM 9A.

   CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES.    71
PART III     

ITEM 10.

   DIRECTORS AND EXECUTIVE OFFICERS OF THE REGISTRANT    72

ITEM 11.

   EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION    72

ITEM 12.

   SECURITY OWNERSHIP OF CERTAIN BENEFICIAL OWNERS AND MANAGEMENT    72

ITEM 13.

   CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED TRANSACTION    72

ITEM 14.

   PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTANT FEES AND SERVICES.    72
PART IV     

ITEM 15.

   EXHIBITS, FINANCIAL STATEMENT SCHEDULE, AND REPORTS ON FORM 8-K    73

SIGNATURES

   74

INDEX TO EXHIBITS

   75

 

i


Table of Contents

PART I

 

ITEM 1. BUSINESS.

 

Unless the context indicates otherwise, references to “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to the consolidated business operations of Conn’s, Inc. and all of its direct and indirect subsidiaries, limited liability companies and limited partnerships.

 

Overview

 

We are a specialty retailer of home appliances and consumer electronics. We sell major home appliances including refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers and ranges, and a variety of consumer electronics including projection, plasma and LCD televisions, camcorders, VCRs, DVD players and home theater products. We also sell home office equipment, lawn and garden products and bedding, and we continue to introduce additional product categories for the home to help increase same store sales and to respond to our customers’ product needs. In the last three years, we have introduced several new product lines, including lawn and garden, bedding and generators. We offer over 1,100 product items, or SKUs, at good-better-best price points representing such national brands as General Electric, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, Mitsubishi, Sony, Panasonic, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Simmons, Hewlett Packard and Compaq. Based on revenue in 2002, we were the 13th largest retailer of home appliances in the United States, and we are either the first or second leading retailer of home appliances in terms of market share in the majority of our existing markets.

 

We began as a small plumbing and heating business in 1890. We began selling home appliances to the retail market in 1937 though one store located in Beaumont, Texas. We opened our second store in 1959 and have since grown to 47 stores, selling home appliances, consumer electronics, home office equipment, lawn and garden products and bedding.

 

We have been known for providing excellent customer service for over 113 years. We believe that our customer-focused business strategies make us an attractive alternative to appliance and electronics superstores, department stores and other national, regional and local retailers. We strive to provide our customers with:

 

    a high level of customer service;

 

    highly trained and knowledgeable sales personnel;

 

    a broad range of customer-driven, brand name products;

 

    flexible financing alternatives through our proprietary credit programs;

 

    same day and next day delivery capabilities; and

 

    outstanding product repair service.

 

We believe that these strategies drive repeat purchases and enable us to generate substantial brand name recognition and customer loyalty. During fiscal 2004, approximately 59% of our credit customers, based on the number of invoices written, were repeat customers.

 

In 1994, we realigned and added to our management team, enhanced our infrastructure and refined our operating strategy to position ourselves for future growth. From fiscal 1994 to fiscal 1999, we selectively grew our store base from 21 to 26 stores while improving operating margins from 5.2% to 8.7%. Since fiscal 1999, we have generated significant growth in our number of stores, revenue and profitability. Specifically:

 

    we have grown from 26 stores to 47 stores, an increase of more than 80%, with several more stores currently under development;

 

    total revenues have grown at a compounded annual rate of 18.2% from $234.5 million in fiscal 1999, to $499.3 million in fiscal 2004;

 

    net income from continuing operations has grown at a compounded annual rate of 24.9% from $8.8 million in fiscal 1999 to $24.3 million in fiscal 2004; and

 

1


Table of Contents
    our same store sales growth from fiscal 1999 to fiscal 2004 has averaged 8.7%.

 

Our principal executives offices are located at 3295 College Street, Beaumont, Texas 77701. Our telephone number is (409) 832-1696, and our corporate website is www.conns.com. We do not intend for information contained on our website to be part of this Form 10-K.

 

Corporate Reorganization

 

We were formed as a Delaware corporation in January 2003 with an initial capitalization of $1,000 to become the holding company of Conn Appliances, Inc., a Texas corporation. Prior to the completion of our initial public offering (the “IPO”) in November 2003, we had no operations. As a result of the IPO, Conn Appliances, Inc. became our wholly-owned subsidiary and the common and preferred stockholders of Conn Appliances, Inc. exchanged their common and preferred stock on a one-for-one basis for the common and preferred stock of Conn’s, Inc. Immediately after the IPO, all preferred stock and accumulated dividends were redeemed, either through the payment of cash or through the conversion of preferred stock to common stock.

 

Industry Overview

 

The home appliance and consumer electronics industry includes major home appliances, small appliances, home office equipment, televisions and audio, video and mobile electronics. Sellers of home appliances and consumer electronics include large appliance and electronics superstores, national chains, small regional chains, single-store operators, appliance and consumer electronics departments of selected department and discount stores and home improvement centers.

 

Based on data published in Twice, This Week in Consumer Electronics, a newspaper dedicated to the consumer electronics, computer and major appliances industries in the United States, the top 100 major appliance retailers reported sales of approximately $15.8 billion in 2002, up approximately 9.9% from reported sales in 2001 of approximately $14.3 billion. We estimate sales for the appliance industry for 2002, based upon total estimated shipments including builders’ sales and those retailers not included in the top 100 retailers as compiled by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, to be in excess of $24 billion. We estimate total sales in the major appliance industry will exceed $29 billion by 2005. The retail appliance market is large and concentrated among a few major dealers. Sears has been the leader in the retail appliance market, with a market share of the top 100 retailers of approximately 36% in 2002, down from approximately 39% in 2001.

 

As measured by Twice, the top 100 consumer electronics retailers in the United States reported sales of $101.4 billion in 2002, a 6.2% increase from the $95.5 billion reported in 2001. According to the Consumer Electronics Association, or CEA, total industry manufacturer sales of consumer electronics products in the United States, including imports, are projected to exceed $109 billion by 2007. The consumer electronics market is highly fragmented. We estimate, based on data provided in Twice, that the two largest consumer electronics superstore chains together accounted for less than one-third of the total electronics sales attributable to the 100 largest retailers in 2002. New entrants in both the home appliances and consumer electronics industries have been successful in gaining market share by offering similar product selections at lower prices.

 

In the home appliance market, many factors drive growth, including consumer confidence, household formations and new product introductions. Product design and innovation is rapidly becoming a key driver of growth in this market. Products either recently introduced or scheduled to be offered include high speed ovens, custom refrigerators, appliances with stainless steel exteriors, personal garment dry cleaning appliances and energy-efficient appliances.

 

Technological advancements and the introduction of new products have largely driven growth in the consumer electronics market. Recently, industry growth has been fueled primarily by the introduction of products that incorporate digital technology, such as DVD players and digital camcorders, digital stereo receivers, satellite technology, cameras and televisions. Digital products offer significant advantages over their analog counterparts, including better clarity and quality of video and audio, durability of recording and compatibility with computers. Due to these advantages, we believe that digital technology will continue to drive industry growth as consumers replace their analog products with digital products. We believe the following product advancements will continue to fuel growth in the consumer electronics industry and represent a significant potential market for us.

 

    Digital Television (DTV and High Definition TV). The Federal Communications Commission has set a target of 2006 for all commercial television stations to transition from broadcasting analog signals to

 

2


Table of Contents

digital signals. The Yankee Group, a communications and networking research and consulting firm, estimates that by the year 2007, HDTV signals will be in nearly 41.6 million, or 40%, of homes in the United States. This represents a compounded annual growth rate of 17.1% from the estimated 18.9 million homes receiving digital cable at the end of 2002. To view a digital transmission, consumers will need either a digital television or a set-top box converter capable of converting the digital broadcast for viewing on an analog set. According to the CEA, DTV unit sales are expected to grow from an estimated 4.3 million units in 2003 to 16.2 million units in 2007, representing a compounded annual growth rate of 39.3%. We believe the recent introduction of high clarity digital flat panel televisions in both liquid crystal display, or LCD, and plasma formats has increased the quality and sophistication of these entertainment products and will be a key driver of digital television growth.

 

    Digital Versatile Disc (DVD). According to the CEA, the DVD player has become the fastest growing consumer electronics product in history. First introduced in March 1997, DVD players are currently in 41% of U.S. homes, and we believe that DVD players will reach a household penetration level of 70% by 2007. Sales of DVD players grew from 0.3 million units in 1997 to 17.1 million units in 2002 and are expected to further increase to 24.3 million units in 2004.

 

    Digital Radio. The conversion to digital radio is taking place through two independent platforms, satellite and terrestrial. Digital satellite radio is currently being provided by Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio. As of December 31, 2003, Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio had approximately 261,000 and approximately 1,360,000 subscribers, respectively, and XM Satellite Radio expects to reach 2.8 million subscribers in 2004. The Yankee Group estimates that the number of U.S. satellite radio subscribers will reach approximately 21 million by 2006. The well-established terrestrial AM/FM radio stations began upgrading to digital radio in 2003.

 

Home appliance and electronics retailers typically provide few or no in-house financing options. Consumers see home appliances and electronics as necessary or desirable, but many customers are unable to afford them without financing, which may be difficult to obtain. Moreover, once customers purchase an item, they typically have to wait several days for delivery and may be unable to receive product service from the seller.

 

Business Strategy

 

Our objective is to be the leading specialty retailer of home appliances and consumer electronics in each of our markets. We strive to achieve this objective through execution of the following strategies.

 

    Providing a high level of customer service. We endeavor to maintain a very high level of customer service as a key component of our culture, which has resulted in customer satisfaction levels at consistent rates between 90% and 95%. We measure customer satisfaction in our customer service on the sales floor, in our delivery operation and in our service department by sending survey cards to all customers for whom we have delivered or installed a product or made a service call. Our customer service resolution department attempts to address all customer complaints within 48 hours of receipt. We are working to expand this department to enable us to make customer satisfaction calls to every customer as soon as possible after a delivery is made or a service call is completed.

 

    Developing and retaining highly trained and knowledgeable sales personnel. We require all sales personnel to specialize in home appliances, consumer electronics or “track” products. Track products include small appliances, computers, camcorders, DVD players, cameras and telephones that are sold within the interior of a large colorful track that circles the interior floor of our stores. This approach allows the sales person to focus on a specific product category and become an expert in selling and using products in that category. New sales personnel must complete an intensive three-week classroom training program conducted at our corporate office followed by an additional week of on-the-job training riding in a delivery and service truck to observe how we serve our customers after the sale is made.

 

    Offering a broad range of customer-driven, brand name products. We offer a comprehensive selection of high-quality, brand name merchandise to our customers at guaranteed low prices. Consistent with our good-better-best merchandising strategy, we offer a wide range of product selections from entry-level models through high-end models. We maintain strong relationships with approximately 50 manufacturers and distributors that enable us to offer over 1,100 SKUs to our customers. Our principal suppliers include General Electric, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, Mitsubishi, Sony, Panasonic, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Simmons, Hewlett Packard and Compaq. To facilitate our responsiveness to

 

3


Table of Contents

customer demand, we use our prototype store, located near our corporate offices in Beaumont, Texas, to test the sale of all new products and obtain customers’ reactions to new display formats before introducing these products and display formats to our other stores.

 

    Offering flexible financing alternatives through our proprietary credit programs. Historically, we have financed approximately 56% of our retail sales through our internal credit programs. We believe our credit programs expand our potential customer base, increase our sales revenue and enhance customer loyalty by providing our customers immediate access to financing alternatives that our competitors typically do not offer. Our credit department makes all credit decisions internally, entirely independent of our sales personnel. We provide special consideration to the customer’s credit history with us. Before extending credit, we match our loss experience by product category with the customer’s creditworthiness to determine down payment amounts and other credit terms. This facilitates product sales while keeping our credit risk within an acceptable range. Approximately 57% of customers who have active credit accounts with us take advantage of our in-store payment option and come to our stores each month to make their payments, which we believe results in additional sales to these customers. Through our daily calling program, we contact customers with past due accounts and attempt to work with them to collect payments in times of financial difficulty or periods of economic downturn. Our credit decisions and collections process enabled us to achieve a 2.7% net loss ratio in fiscal 2003 and a 2.9% net loss ratio in fiscal 2004 on the credit portfolio that we service for a Qualifying Special Purpose Entity or QSPE.

 

    Maintaining same day and next day distribution capabilities. We maintain four regional distribution centers and two other related facilities that cover all of the major markets in which we operate. These facilities are part of a sophisticated inventory management system that also includes a fleet of approximately 130 transfer and delivery vehicles that service all of our markets. Our distribution operations enable us to deliver products on the day of, or the day after, the sale to approximately 95% of our customers.

 

    Providing outstanding product repair service. We service every product that we sell, and we service only the products that we sell. In this way, we can assure our customers that they will receive our service technicians’ exclusive attention to their product repair needs. All of our service centers are authorized factory service facilities that provide trained technicians to offer in-home diagnostic and repair service as well as on-site service and repairs for products that cannot be repaired in the customer’s home.

 

Store Development and Growth Strategy

 

In addition to executing our business strategy, we intend to continue to achieve profitable, controlled growth by increasing same store sales, opening new stores and updating, expanding or relocating our existing stores.

 

    Increasing same store sales. We plan to continue to increase our same store sales by:
  continuing to offer quality products at competitive prices;

 

  remerchandising our product offerings in response to changes in consumer demand;

 

  training our sales personnel to increase sales closing rates;

 

  updating our stores on a three-year rotating basis;

 

  focusing more specifically on sales of computers and smaller electronics within the interior track area of our stores, including the expansion of high margin accessory items;

 

  continuing to provide a high level of customer service in sales, delivery and servicing of our products;

 

  increasing sales of our merchandise, finance products, service maintenance agreements and credit insurance through direct mail and in-store credit promotion programs; and

 

  introducing a replacement service maintenance agreement that covers replacement of smaller ticket items.

 

4


Table of Contents
    Opening new stores. We intend to take advantage of our reliable infrastructure and proven store model to continue the pace of our new store openings. This infrastructure includes our proprietary management information systems, training processes, distribution network, merchandising capabilities, supplier relationships and centralized credit approval and collection processes. We intend to expand our store base in existing, adjacent and new markets, as follows:

 

  Existing and adjacent markets. We intend to increase our market presence by opening new stores in our existing markets, in adjacent markets and in new markets. New store openings in these locations will allow us to take advantage of our perceived market opportunity in those markets and leverage our existing distribution network, cluster advertising, brand name recognition and reputation.

 

  New markets. In fiscal 2004, we opened three new stores in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. We have identified several additional markets that meet our criteria for site selection, including the Rio Grande Valley in southwest Texas, New Orleans and central Louisiana around Shreveport, Monroe and Alexandria. We intend to enter these new markets, as well as some in neighboring states, over the next several fiscal years. We will first address markets in states in which we currently operate. We expect that this new store growth will include major metropolitan markets in both Texas and Louisiana. We have also identified a number of smaller markets within Texas and Louisiana in which we expect to explore new store opportunities. Our long-term growth plans include markets in other areas of significant population density within neighboring states. During fiscal 2005, we expect to open four to six stores in new markets in Texas and Louisiana.

 

    Updating, expanding or relocating existing stores. Over the last three years, we have updated, expanded or relocated most of our stores. We have implemented our larger prototype store model at all locations at which the physical space would accommodate the required design changes. As we continue to add new stores or replace existing stores, we will modify our floor plan to include this new model. We continuously evaluate our existing and potential sites to ensure our stores are in the best possible locations and relocate stores that are not properly positioned. We typically lease rather than purchase our stores to retain the flexibility of subleasing a location if we later decide that the store is performing below our standards. However, with the completion of our IPO, we believe that we are now positioned more favorably to take advantage of real estate purchase opportunities as they are determined. After updating, expanding or relocating a store, we expect to increase same store sales at those stores.

 

The addition of new stores has played, and we believe will continue to play, a significant role in our continued growth and success. We currently operate 47 retail stores located in Texas and Louisiana. We opened 11 stores in the twelve months ended January 31, 2002, of which four were relocations of existing stores. We opened twelve stores in fiscal 2003, of which five were relocations of existing stores; we opened three stores in fiscal 2004; and we opened two stores subsequent to January 31, 2004. We also closed one store during fiscal 2003. We plan to continue our store development program by opening an additional two to four new stores and updating approximately six stores during the balance of fiscal 2005. We believe that continuing to grow our store base and locating our stores in desirable geographic markets are essential for our future success.

 

Customers

 

We do not have a significant concentration of sales with any individual customer and, therefore, the loss of any one customer would not have a material impact on our business. No single customer accounts for more than 10% of our total revenues.

 

Products and Merchandising

 

Product Categories. Each of our stores sells five major categories of products: major home appliances, consumer electronics, home office equipment, delivery and installation services and other household products, including lawn and garden equipment and bedding. The following table presents a summary of net sales by major product category, service maintenance agreement commissions and service revenues, for fiscal 2001, the six month fiscal period ended January 31, 2002, fiscal 2003 and fiscal 2004:

 

5


Table of Contents
    

Year Ended

July 31, 2001


   

Six Months Ended

January 31, 2002 (1)


    Years Ended January 31,

 
         2003

    2004

 
     Amount

   %

    Amount

   %

    Amount

   %

    Amount

   %

 
     (dollars in thousands)  

Major home appliances

   $ 114,769    39.3 %   $ 63,907    35.0 %   $ 148,878    38.2 %   $ 161,411    36.6 %

Consumer electronics

     107,548    36.8       75,355    41.2       151,196    38.8       176,868    40.1  

Home office equipment

     22,572    7.7       16,523    9.0       25,617    6.6       30,251    6.9  

Delivery and installation

     5,271    1.8       3,238    1.8       6,369    1.6       7,987    1.8  

Other (including lawn and garden and bedding)

     9,687    3.3       3,762    2.1       15,819    4.1       22,101    5.0  
    

  

 

  

 

  

 

  

Total product sales

     259,847    88.9       162,785    89.1       347,879    89.3       398,618    90.4  

Service maintenance agreement commissions

     18,742    6.4       11,922    6.5       22,961    5.9       24,035    5.5  

Service revenues

     13,799    4.7       7,904    4.4       18,656    4.8       18,265    4.1  
    

  

 

  

 

  

 

  

Total net sales

   $ 292,388    100.0 %   $ 182,611    100.0 %   $ 389,496    100.0 %   $ 440,918    100.0 %
    

  

 

  

 

  

 

  


(1)   Sales amounts and percentages for this period do not reflect the effect of summer air conditioner sales and lawn and garden product sales.

 

Within these major product categories (excluding service maintenance agreements, service revenues and delivery and installation), we offer our customers over 1,100 SKUs in a wide range of price points. Most of these products are manufactured by brand name companies, including General Electric, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, Mitsubishi, Sony, Panasonic, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Simmons, Hewlett Packard and Compaq. As part of our good-better- best merchandising strategy, our customers are able to choose from products ranging from low-end to mid- to high-end models in each of our key product categories, as follows:

 

Category


 

Products


 

Selected Brands


Major appliances

  Refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers, ranges, dishwashers, air conditioners and vacuum cleaners   General Electric, Frigidaire, Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Sharp, Samsung, Friedrich, Roper, Hoover and Eureka

Consumer electronics

  Projection, plasma, LCD and DLP televisions, home theater systems, VCRs, camcorders, digital cameras, DVD players, audio components, compact disc players, speakers and portable electronics   Mitsubishi, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Sony, Toshiba, Sanyo, JVC, Panasonic, Hitachi, Yamaha, Polk, Kenwood and JBL

Home office equipment

  Computers, computer peripherals, personal digital assistants and telephones   Hewlett Packard, Compaq, Sony and Panasonic

Other

  Lawn and garden, bedding and generators   Poulan, Toro, Weedeater, Tempur-pedic and Simmons

 

Purchasing. We purchase products from approximately 50 manufacturers and distributors. Our agreements with these manufacturers and distributors typically cover a one or two year time period, are renewable at the option of the parties and are terminable upon 30 days written notice by either party. Similar to other specialty retailers, we purchase a significant portion of our total inventory from a limited number of vendors. During fiscal 2004, 61.1% of our total inventory purchases were from six vendors, including 15.5%, 12.5% and 11.2% of our total inventory from Frigidaire, Whirlpool and Sony, respectively. The loss of any one or more of these key vendors or our failure to establish and maintain relationships with these and other vendors could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition. We have no indication that any of our suppliers will discontinue selling us merchandise. We have not experienced significant difficulty in maintaining adequate sources of merchandise, and we generally expect that adequate sources of merchandise will continue to exist for the types of products we sell.

 

6


Table of Contents

Merchandising Strategy. We focus on providing a comprehensive selection of high-quality merchandise to appeal to a broad range of potential customers. Consistent with our good-better-best merchandising strategy, we offer a wide range of product selections from entry-level models through high-end models. We primarily sell brand name warrantied merchandise. Our established relationships with major appliance and electronic vendors give us purchasing power that allows us to offer custom-featured appliances and electronics and provides us a competitive selling advantage over other independent retailers. We use our prototype store, located near our corporate offices in Beaumont, Texas, to test the sale of all new products and obtain customers’ reactions to new display formats before introducing these products and display formats to our other stores. As part of our merchandising strategy, we operate clearance centers in our Houston and San Antonio markets to help sell scratched, used or discontinued merchandise. We have recently redesigned our approach to the merchandising of our “track” products to provide consumer-friendly point of sale transactions that take place within a track area located in the interior of our store. We believe that this focused approach to creating consumer awareness and ease of purchase of our track products will help increase same store sales. We do, however, expect product margins to decrease because many of these products are sold at lower margins.

 

Pricing. We emphasize competitive pricing on all of our products and maintain a low price guarantee that is valid in all markets from 10 to 30 days after the sale, depending on the product. At most of our stores, to print an invoice that contains pricing other than the price maintained within our computer system, sales personnel must call a special “hotline” number at the corporate office. Store operations management and our corporate office closely monitor the stores that do not have this price adjustment system. Personnel staffing this hotline number are familiar with competitor pricing and are authorized to make price adjustments to fulfill our low price guarantee when a customer presents acceptable proof of the competitor’s lower price. This centralized function also allows us to maintain control of pricing and to store and retrieve pricing data of our competitors.

 

Customer Service

 

We focus on customer service as a key component of our strategy. We believe our same day or next day delivery option, which is not offered by most of our competitors, is one of the keys to our success. Additionally, we attempt to answer and resolve all customer complaints within 48 hours of receipt. We track customer complaints by individual salesperson, delivery person and service technician. We send out over 30,000 customer satisfaction survey cards each month covering all deliveries and service calls. Based upon a response rate from our customers of approximately 20%, we consistently report customer satisfaction rates between 90% and 95%. We have already planned the physical facilities necessary to implement a proactive customer satisfaction call center, and once the center is fully operational, we expect to contact most customers within 48 hours of product delivery or completed service call to inquire about their satisfaction with their purchases or service call experience with us.

 

Store Operations

 

Stores. We currently operate 47 retail stores located in Texas and Louisiana. The following table illustrates our markets, the number of freestanding and strip mall stores in each market and the year we opened our first store in each market:

 

Market


   Number of Stores

  

First

Store
Opened


   Stand
Alone


   Strip
Mall


  

Houston

   8    10    1983

San Antonio/Austin

   7    6    1994

Golden Triangle (Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange, Texas)

   1    4    1937

Baton Rouge/Lafayette

   1    4    1975

Corpus Christi

   1    0    2002

Dallas/Fort Worth

   —      5    2003
    
  
    
     18    29     
    
  
    

 

Our stores have an average selling space of approximately 19,900 square feet, plus a rear storage area averaging approximately 5,700 square feet for fast-moving or smaller products that customers prefer to carry out rather than wait for in-home delivery. Two of our stores are clearance centers for discontinued product models and damaged merchandise, returns and repossessed product. Our clearance centers are located in the Houston and San Antonio/Austin markets and average 12,000 square feet of selling space. All stores and clearance

 

7


Table of Contents

centers are open from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, and from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Sunday. We also offer extended store hours during the holiday selling season.

 

Approximately 60% of our stores are located in strip shopping centers and regional malls, with the balance being stand-alone buildings. All of our locations have parking available immediately adjacent to the store’s front entrance. Our storefronts have a distinctive exterior tower that guides the customer to the entrance of the store. Inside the store, a large colorful tile track circles the interior floor of the store. One side of the track leads the customer to major appliances, lawn and garden products and bedding while the other side of the track leads the customer to a large display of television and projection television products. The inside of the track contains various home office and consumer electronic products such as computers, printers, DVD players, camcorders, digital cameras and telephones. During fiscal 2004, we redesigned our approach to merchandising of our track products to provide consumer-friendly point of sale transactions. The area inside the track now has its own sales personnel and merchandising approach for its products. The rear of the store contains a display for audio and stereo products. To reach the cashier’s desk at the center of the track area, our customers must walk past our products. We believe this increases sales to customers that have purchased products from us on credit in the past and who return to our stores to make their monthly credit payments.

 

We have updated or relocated all of our stores in the last three years. We expect to continue to update stores on a three year cycle. All of our updated stores, as well as our new stores, include modern interior selling spaces featuring attractive signage and display areas specifically designed for each major product type. Our prototype store for future expansion has from 20,000 to 24,000 square feet of retail selling space, which is approximately 15% more than the average size of our existing stores and a rear storage area of between 5,000 and 7,000 square feet. We generally spend approximately $275,000 to $350,000 to update a store, and as a result of the updating, we expect to increase same store sales at those stores. Over the last three years, we have spent approximately $15.5 million updating, refurbishing or relocating our existing stores.

 

Site Selection. Our stores are typically located near freeways or major travel arteries and in the vicinity of major retail shopping areas. We prefer to locate our stores in an area where our prominent tower storefront will be the anchor of the shopping center or readily visible from major thoroughfares. We also attempt to locate our stores in the vicinity of major home appliance and electronics superstores. We have typically entered markets where we can potentially support at least 10 to 12 stores. We believe this number of stores allows us to optimize advertising and distribution costs. We may, however, elect to experiment with opening smaller numbers of new stores in outlying areas where customer demand for products and services outweighs the extra cost of failing to achieve full economies of scale. Other factors we consider when evaluating potential markets include the distance from our distribution centers, store locations of our competitors and population, demographics and growth potential of the market.

 

Store Economics. We lease 43 of our 47 current store locations, with an average monthly rent of $21,000. Our average investment for the nine stores we have opened in the last two years was approximately $1.1 million, including leasehold improvements, fixtures and equipment and inventory (net of accounts payable). For these same new stores, the net sales per store has averaged $0.7 million per month for the last 18 months or the actual time the store has been open, if less than 18 months.

 

Our new stores have typically been profitable on an operating basis within their first three to six months of operation and, on average have returned our investment in 20 months or less. We consider a new store to be successful if it achieves $8 million to $9 million in sales volume and 2% to 5% in operating margins before other ancillary revenues and allocations of overhead and advertising in the first full year of operation. We expect successful stores that have matured, which generally occurs after two to three years of operations, to generate annual sales of approximately $12 million to $15 million and 5% to 9% in operating margins before other ancillary revenues and allocations. However, depending on the credit and insurance penetration of an individual store, we believe that a store that does not achieve these levels of sales can still contribute significantly to our pretax margin. Assuming that the store location is both visible and accessible from major thoroughfares and that major competition exists in the general area, we believe that there is a significant difference in sales volume between stores that are freestanding and stores that are located in strip malls. Most of our new and replacement stores, therefore, are stand-alone stores unless there is compelling demographic data to cause us to locate the store in a strip mall.

 

Personnel and Compensation. We staff a typical store with a store manager, an assistant manager, 10 to 20 sales personnel and other support staff including cashiers and/or porters. Managers have an average

 

8


Table of Contents

tenure with us of approximately seven years and typically have prior sales floor experience. In addition to store managers, we have five district managers that generally oversee from eight to 12 stores in each market. Our district managers generally have five to 15 years of sales experience and report to our senior vice president of store operations, who has over 20 years of sales experience. We treat the track area of our stores as a store within a store with a separate staff and merchandising function.

 

We compensate home appliance and consumer electronics sales specialists on a straight commission arrangement, while we generally compensate store managers and cashiers on a salary basis plus incentives or at an hourly rate. Our store managers receive a base salary and monthly bonuses; in some instances, store managers receive earned commissions plus base salary. Our clearance centers are staffed with a manager and six to eight sales personnel who are paid on a straight commission arrangement. Sales personnel within the track area are also compensated on a straight commission arrangement. We believe that because our store compensation plans are tied to sales, they generally provide us an advantage in attracting and retaining highly motivated employees.

 

Training. New sales personnel must complete an intensive three-week classroom training program conducted at our corporate office. We then require them to spend an additional week riding in a delivery and service truck to gain an understanding of how we serve our customers after the sale is made. Installation and delivery staff and service personnel receive training through an on-the-job program in which individuals are assigned to an experienced installation and delivery or service employee as helpers prior to working alone.

 

We attempt to identify store manager candidates early in their careers with us and place them in a defined program of training. They first attend our in-house training program, which provides guidance and direction for the development of managerial and supervisory skills. They then attend an external management course that helps solidify their management knowledge and builds upon their internal training. After completion of these training programs, manager candidates work as assistant managers for six to 12 months and are then allowed to manage one of our smaller stores, where they are supervised closely by the store’s district manager. We give new managers an opportunity to operate larger stores as they become more proficient in their management skills. Each store manager attends mandatory training sessions on a monthly basis and also attends bi-weekly sales training meetings where participants receive and discuss new product information.

 

Marketing

 

We design our marketing and advertising programs to increase our brand name recognition, educate consumers about our products and services and generate customer traffic in order to increase sales. Our programs include periodic promotions such as three, six or twelve months of no interest financing. We conduct our advertising programs primarily through local newspapers, local radio and television stations and direct marketing through direct mail, telephone and our website.

 

Direct marketing has become an effective way for us to present our products and services to our existing customers and potential new customers. We use direct mail to target promotional mailings to creditworthy individuals, including new residents in our market areas from time to time. In addition, we use direct mail to market increased credit lines to existing customers, to encourage customers using third party credit to convert to our credit programs and for customer appreciation mailings. We also conduct a mail program to reestablish contact with customers who applied for credit recently at one of our stores but did not purchase a product. We also call customers who recently applied for credit at one of our retail locations but did not purchase a product; this often redirects these potential purchasers back into the original store location. This telephone program was responsible for an additional $31.4 million in revenue during fiscal 2004.

 

Our website, www.conns.com, offers a selection of products from our total product inventory and provides useful information to the consumer on pricing, features and benefits for each product. Our website also allows the customer to apply and be considered for credit, to see our special on-line promotional items and to make purchases on-line through the use of approved credit cards. The website currently averages approximately 3,900 visits per day from potential and existing customers. During fiscal 2004, our website was the initial source of approximately 67,000 credit applications that resulted in $31.9 million in sales completed in our stores. The website is linked to a call center, allowing us to better assist customers with their credit and product needs.

 

Distribution and Inventory Management

 

We typically cluster our stores around four regional distribution centers located in Houston, San Antonio and Beaumont, Texas and Lafayette, Louisiana and smaller warehouse facilities in Austin and Dallas, Texas.

 

9


Table of Contents

This enables us to deliver products to our customers quickly, reduces inventory requirements at the individual stores and facilitates regionalized inventory and accounting controls. As part of our continued growth in the Dallas/Fort Worth market, we expect to significantly increase the size of our warehouse facility.

 

In our retail stores, we maintain an inventory of fast-moving items and products that the customer is likely to carry out of the store. Our sophisticated Distribution Inventory Sales computer system and the recent introduction of scanning technology in our distribution centers allow us to determine on a real-time basis the exact location of any product we sell. If we do not have a product at the desired retail store at the time of sale, we can provide it through our distribution system on a next day basis.

 

We maintain a fleet of 18-wheeler transport trucks that allow us to move products from market to market and from distribution centers to stores. At each distributi